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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsBob Woodward demands law-ignoring, mind-controlling presidential leadership
http://www.salon.com/2013/02/27/bob_woodward_demands_law_ignoring_mind_controlling_presidential_leadership/Bob Woodward demands law-ignoring, mind-controlling presidential leadership
Washington's most respected reporter is embarrassing himself in his sequester showdown comments
By Alex Pareene
snip//
There is nothing less important about the sequester than the question of whose idea it originally was. So, naturally, that is the question that much of the political press is obsessed with, to the exclusion of almost everything else. Republicans have been making the slightly incoherent argument that a) the sequester, which is a bad thing, is entirely Obamas fault, b) Obama is exaggerating how bad the sequester will be, and c) the sequester, which is Obamas fault, is preferable to not having the sequester. Woodward has lately been fixated on Obamas responsibility for the idea of the sequester, but at this point, the important question is who will be responsible if it actually happens. On that question, Woodward, and others, have taken the position that it will be Obamas fault because he has failed to show leadership. But laws come from Congress. The president signs or vetoes them. Republicans in the House are unwilling and unable to repeal the law Congress passed creating the sequester. All Obama can do is ask them to pass such a law, and to make the case to the public that they should pass such a law. And Obama has been doing those things, a lot.
Woodwards most recent Obama book also took the position that presidents should work their will on important matters of national business, though how ones will should be worked on a congressional opposition party led by a weak leader and unwilling even to negotiate with the president is never really explained. As Jonathan Chait points out, use mind control to get your way is an incredibly popular argument among centrist establishment political reporters and analysts. It is a convenient way of taking a debate where most people agree that one side has a reasonable position and the other side an unreasonable position and making it still something you can blame both sides for. Sure, the Republicans are both hapless and fanatical, but the president should make them not be.
Bob Woodwards name is synonymous with Quality Journalism, mostly because of one really good movie. The movie, based on a book that is riddled with exaggeration and misdirection, permanently established Woodward as the best shoe-leather reporter in politics, though his modern reporting style does not put too much of a strain on his Ferragamo loafers: He simply talks to powerful people in his kitchen and then re-creates events based on what they tell him. Powerful people talk to Woodward because of his reputation, and because talking to Woodward is the best way to ensure that they come across well in his best-selling books. They talk because they figure if they dont give him a self-serving account of events, someone else will give him a version that makes them look bad. My dream is a Washington where no one talks to Woodward, but until that happens people will continue to pay attention to his biennial book-promoting cable news blitzes and occasional appearances in the pages of the newspaper that continued to pay him a salary despite his withholding most of his original reporting from that newspaper until quite recently.
In 2010 he said a Hillary Clinton-Joe Biden switch was on the table, although it was not. He suffered no professional consequences for saying made-up nonsense. Bob Woodward has lost it, lets all stop indulging him.
Vinnie From Indy
(10,820 posts)He went to great lengths to prop up Smirky.
InAbLuEsTaTe
(24,122 posts)DURHAM D
(32,610 posts)kelliekat44
(7,759 posts)He's been jumping from one RW cause to another in an effort to not continue to be hated by the RW power-brokers.
Jennicut
(25,415 posts)But since I came of age in the mid 90's he has been a total smarmy slimeball who has craved access to Presidents. Watergate happened in 72, a few years before I was born. Was he different then? He must have been. I have no idea what happened to him but the Bob Woodward since Watergate has done nothing but make a fool of himself. His books on Clinton, Bush and Obama have all been terrible and a huge waste of time. Bob, your days of relevance are over.
TheKentuckian
(25,026 posts)A lot of static and bad will could be avoided by simply actually opposing the TeaPubliKlans rather than trying to placate them, negotiating with one's self to come to a place they might find comfortable, and worst of all allowing these hostage situations to string together with more and more of the American people's fat in the fire.
Let's cut the bullshit, the TeaPubliKlans have done none of this on their own, they lack the power and initiative to do so. Our people had the power to nip this shit in the bud. Reality appears that everybody wants austerity and the battle is who gets the blame and that is the whole game.